Not the causse de gramat, all earth skin and bones, its arid plateaus of bleached limestone, its stony oak ravines plunged into their own shadows. Not the high thin pastureland etched by Roman road and raccoon-eyed sheep. Not the limargues, the abrupt grassy sinks formed by rain’s acid leach through porous stone; not the shepherds’ huts built into drystone fences, their arched doorways opening onto uplands scented with horsemint and wild thyme and pungent ivy. Not the river valleys overhung by ruined castles, the green, rich alluvial soil, rows of slender Lombardy poplars screening the fields of strawberry and tobacco, the plentiful salmon, lamprey, eel, pike. Not the dense chestnut forests, not the groves of truffle oaks, the wild pigs rooting among damp leaves and lichen in the shade. Not the Padirac Chasm, the underground river flowing clear with emerald water, dammed weirdly by minerals, where the residents of the causse descended by torchlight to hide during the Hundred Years’ War. Not the stalagmites, the stalagtites, the eerie crystalline grottoes, the caves dripping with calcium glitter, prehistory’s concreted ooze. Not the arcaded galleries of Lascaux, the pale cliffs and dark catacombs of the Vézère Valley, the Magdalenian wonders in ocher and reindeer bone about which Ted and Bill Merwin have been conversing and corresponding since their introduction in Boston in 1957, the year of Ted’s first book and Sylvia’s dismal slog through two semesters on the faculty at Smith. Not, in Sylvia’s case, lifting a finger, as she had forewarned her accommodating hosts before crossing the channel into France in the Hugheses’ brand-new car, their first trip away since Frieda’s birth. Not, it turned out, merely no housework, but no walks, no exploration, no socializing, no digressions from her incommutable holiday agenda, to which she expected Ted, as well, to adhere.

Instead, a week’s appeasement. Sylvia sketching, napping, eating, working on her tan. Taking long showers until the water from the cistern ran cold. Lolling on the stone bolet, the broad outdoor porch of the Merwins’ restored farmhouse, with her portable typewriter and her correspondence and the nearly finished manuscript of her novel. Writing letters amid the potted geraniums and the diving sparrows, beyond the raftered bedroom where she’s rearranged the furniture. Sitting in potent silence through an impromptu visit by the Merwins’ elderly neighbor. Glaring at the rusty delivery van that pulls up unannounced through the courtyard gate and cuts its engine in front of the open front door, rising from her chaise and glaring over the porch rail as the driver climbs out of the cab with the weekly bread from the local baker. Lunching from trays supplied by Dido, who smokes and cooks in the vaulted kitchen downstairs, rinsing lettuce and beans in the shallow stone basin, concocting solitary chores and ingratiating feasts to mollify the ferocious rigidity of her invited guest.